Journalismfund Europe experienced a remarkable increase in both available funding and demand for its programmes in 2025, compared to 2024. This highlights the growing need for support for independent investigative journalism across Europe and beyond. The total budget requested by applicants more than doubled in 2025, rising from €15.1 million in 2024 to to €30.9 million. This 104% surge reflects the increased scale and ambition of investigative and capacity-building projects submitted to Journalismfund Europe.
The number of applications also grew substantially, from 780 in 2024 to 1,308 in 2025 (+68%), while the number of individual applicants increased from 1,830 to 2,427 (+33%). This indicates not only more projects being proposed, but also a broader and more diverse community of journalists turning to Journalismfund Europe for support.
This growing demand was matched by a strong increase in the funding Journalismfund Europe was able to distribute.
In 2025, the organisation granted €5.26 million to investigative journalism projects, compared to €3.76 million in 2024 — a 40% rise in awarded funding.
The number of funded applications increased from 262 to 369 (+41%), and the number of supported journalists rose from 675 to 756 (+12%).
By 2025, the supported projects had been published in 1,646 media outlets, resulting in 4,592 articles. The potential reach was immense: 17,844,660,939. These numbers reflect only the online reach and do not include the print coverage of the publications.
These figures highlight both the expanding role of Journalismfund Europe as a key enabler of investigative journalism and the increasing trust from the journalism community in its programmes. At the same time, they underline the continued and growing need for resources to sustain independent, cross-border, and public-interest reporting.
2025 marks a year of significant growth, reinforcing Journalismfund Europe’s mission to strengthen investigative journalism at a time when it is more essential than ever. These remarkable results would not have been possible without the support of our many donors: Arcadia, the European Union, Flanders, the King Baudouin Foundation, Limelight Foundation, The Meliore Foundation and Stichting Veronica.
You can learn more about each programme supported by Journalismfund in 2025 below:
- SoJo Europe
- Pluralistic Media for Democracy
- Environmental Investigative Journalism
- PluPro project (European Cross-Border grants, the European Local Cross-Border grants, and the Microgrants for Small Newsrooms)
- Pascal Decroos Fund
- Professional Development Grants for Environmental Journalism
